According to Aung Thaw, Deputy Defense Minister, as reported by
Reuters last month, “the military is both the architect and guardian of
his country’s embryonic democracy.”
His statement said a lot of things unsaid:

The ruling Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) is just a front for the military

The government led by ex-Gen Thein Sein is also nothing but a stooge of the military

The military has no aim to give up power

For the time being, just for form’s sake and out of necessity, Thein
Sein, Aung San Suu Kyi and the ethnic armed movements are free to have
their fun, but the military aims to return to power both in form and
substance when the time comes

Thein Sein can open up the urban areas as he pleases, but the rural areas remain under the military

This, in essence, is the “disciplined multi-party democratic system,”
as enshrined in the military-drawn constitution (Article-7). At least
that’s what I think.

Myanmar's
Deputy Defense Minister Brig Gen Aung Thaw poses for a photo after an
exclusive interview with Reuters at his ministry in Naypyitaw September
20, 2012. (Photo: REUTERS/Damir Sagolj)

His disclosure reminds me of three things:

Democracy, according to the Communists, is a change brought about by
the bourgeoisie (middle classes). But, according to Chinese Communists,
the Chinese bourgeoisie were too weak and feudalism and imperialism were
too strong, the task of leading the democratic revolution fell on the
shoulders of Chinese proletariat (meaning Chinese Communists). It was
therefore a New Democracy (later also known as People’s Democracy).

Burma’s military appears to be thinking in the same vein: that the
country’s democratic reforms cannot be affected without its leadership.

In a way, the present military leaders are no different from their
predecessors in 1962, when they adopted socialism – the Burmese way to
Socialism (in effect, the Burmese military’s way to socialism) – as the
country’s official dogma.

As we all know, its socialism didn’t bring “from each according to
his ability, to each according to his input” as promised. It merely
changed things from bad to worse, and brought about the 8-8-88
nationwide movements that became its death knell.

Gen Ne Win, who headed the 1962-88 “disciplined socialism” later
admitted: “Had I understood the law of the wheel of life and death, the
law of conditioned things and the law of impermanence and non-ego (The
Buddha’s teachings) the way I understand them now, I wouldn’t have done
what I did in March 1962.” (U Chit Hlaing’s Tayan Yaw Akha Mya (“Those
once upon a time”)

Of course, it is not the way of human beings to learn from past
mistakes. Else “History repeated” would have been an unheard of
expression.

Nevertheless, I keep my fingers crossed and hope that the present
military, for the sake of the country and the people it claims to be
protecting, that, like Gen Ne Win, it doesn’t have to learn it the hard
way.